You studied computer science but Big Tech no longer wants you

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Graduating engineers who studied computer science in a decent school (not necessarily at Stanford; any school that covered languages and algorithms and made students use those in context of practical problems) will do just fine. They will not have a 7-digit bank account 5 years after graduation, but they can still find good tech jobs that, averaged over several years, pay more than enough for a good quality of life.<p>On age, as a single data point from someone whose age starts with &quot;5&quot;, I have not seen particular difficulties in job hunting. To maintain long-term employability I recommend broadening experience beyond the pure computer science to domains that leverage computers to build new things: medical devices, signal processing, sensors, computational biotech, satellites, audio; whatever looks fun. My 2c.

From someone who intimately knows UC Berkeley&#x27;s Computer Science undergraduate program for the entire past decade, this can only be a good thing. Lots of Berkeley smarts have gone to waste by doing nothing in FAANG and chasing the coveted golden handcuffs. Not every case obviously (not sure why this needs to be said), but a vast majority of undergraduates just expect to be handed top compensation for knowing jack shit apart from knowing how to study for an interview, and I always found that odd.<p>Now they might actually need to prove their value in ways that make sense or at least aligns more closely to baseline reasonable.<p>I&#x27;m not saying this out of spite due to being rejected either—I played the same game and came out with top internships and placements at the same set of Big Tech that everyone else wanted. I feel awful about being compelled to participate in that meat grinder.

I worked at a FAANG as a new grad because I thought it was the logical next step in the career of a software developer (money). I really don&#x27;t understand the appeal. Was it once actually worth it? Even with the money and &quot;prestige&quot; it felt like a huge step back career-wise.<p>It was obvious once I got there that the sheer scale meant that more energy had to go into menial tasks than into actual creative work. It seemed like a trap where people who had gotten a Masters or PhD in something actually <i>hard</i> ended up working on things that wouldn&#x27;t even be challenging to someone with a Bachelors.<p>As for the &quot;culture&quot;, well, you&#x27;re surrounded by people who have been grinding to get up the ladder. I think my FAANG coworkers were the least interesting people I have worked with. I don&#x27;t mean that to be rude I think it&#x27;s just selection bias (I consider myself to be boring). Conversely, the people in the boring industries like Government and Aerospace have been some of the most interesting people. They&#x27;re also tackling much more intellectually stimulating problems than most people are going to at FAANG, without advanced degrees.<p>It felt like a misallocation of human potential. I think the contraction of FAANG and &quot;big tech&quot; in general is probably better for the progress of technology and also maybe the personal growth of developers, or at least it is for me. Or not, maybe I am just biased. My $0.02

A lot of the “so what?” comments are missing the point. For years, putting in the effort to get into top CS universities and then putting in the effort to graduate with good marks and an internship or two was understood as <i>the</i> path to a high paying CS career. Many of these students have put in incredible effort to get to this point with the expectation that they’ll have a good chance of landing a FAANG job from which to launch their career.<p>Now that they’ve arrived at graduation, the opportunities available to their older peers for the past decade are suddenly unavailable. Many of those students have spent the last 4-8 years of their lives focused on this goal, only to see the nature of the game change completely right before the finish line.<p>Those of us who have been around for a while know that this is only temporary and that a great CS education still opens doors to many good companies. However, it’s a shock to the system to be focused on a goal (and a specific paycheck) for years and then to discover it’s not available <i>to you</i> right at the end. Try to have some empathy for this turn of events.<p>I mentor in a program for college students and grads. A disproportionate number of our rather talented students are struggling to get any interviews at all, despite our resume reviews and coaching. They’ve gone from hoping to get a FAANG job to hoping they can get any interviews at all. It’s tough out there.

I didn&#x27;t read the article cuz I don&#x27;t have accesss<p>but, so what? you go to any other computer-related job, maybe even for minimal wage<p>and put effort into learning and gettings skills and then you try to get into these high comp jobs.<p>Is it privilege or delusion that grads want to start with top tech companies?

There are, thankfully, more companies in the world than FAANG.

Consulting is always a way to go? Having a track record of success over a long period of time makes it easier for businesses to hire you. To be fair, around the 45 ish age, I would expect most folks to have evolved to a senior+ where it should be more about architecting systems and figuring out how to solve business problems then just executing on code.<p>I saw plenty of those folks 50+ at FANG-ish companies whilst working in the Bay but ofc that&#x27;s just an anecdote.

That&#x27;s a lot of words to say very little with.<p>The great resignation = We want you!<p>The big stay = We don&#x27;t want you!<p>The good times may be over for now, but there will be more good times...<p>We just witnessed both in less than a couple years.

As computer scientist, I have no issue finding a job. I can work in automation field, as teacher (elementary school, high school), as security engineer, infrastructure, devops, banking, accounting, etc.. I&#x27;m sure, maybe some point of time I won&#x27;t be writing code as I do today, but without job, no way<p>Worse are those that just finished a &quot;full dev stack bootcamp&quot; and now are trying to find a job as software developers.

This should have been known from the beginning.<p>1) The dotcom crash (and to a lesser extent 2008) showed us how transient these jobs are<p>2) You&#x27;re going to age out at about 45ish unless you can secure a less common role at a less common company that values tenured folks. You&#x27;re paid well partially as an advance on your unemployability later. One option is to move into management before such a time, or on to wood working or another profession.<p>These are never explicitly said, but if you&#x27;re observant you&#x27;ll realize it&#x27;s the case.

Recessions happen. It&#x27;s a part of life. People need to understand that they aren&#x27;t owed a job.

Interesting. I thought most places would normally only take juniors or seniors for interns anyways.<p>&quot;&#x27;Yeah,&#x27; she said tentatively, in the voice of somebody who had never considered pursuing a career as unglamorous – as unsparkly! – as security.&quot;<p>Hahaha I&#x27;m our team&#x27;s security champion (so the worst of both worlds). This made me laugh.

It&#x27;s as if there were never ups and downs in tech before 2022. As someone who was working in the dotcom era (and before), I&#x27;ve seen so many booms&#x2F;busts&#x2F;layoffs and gluts&#x2F;shortages that I&#x27;ve lost count.<p>TL;DR: This is nothing new. At all. And it&#x27;s certainly not limited to the &#x27;tech&#x27; industry.

Now with s&#x2F;facebook&#x2F;meta&#x2F;, we should rename FAANG to MANGA :)

Poor rich kids, they have to work for a non-famous company like the rest of us.